Spanish Science Fiction and Its Ghosts
The notion of ghost, with all its connotations, applies particularly well
to the paradoxical situation of Spanish science fiction, which is literally haunted
by both the specters of cultural globalization and those of its own obscure and
repressed historical past. To practice science fiction in contemporary Spain
implies openly embracing a foreign culture, and, as a result, the entire genre of
science fiction still appears somewhat suspicious to many when it is “made in
Spain,” as if the notions of “Spanish” and “science fiction” were simply not
compatible. This instinctive fear of an entire narrative mode, namely science
fiction, is based in part upon some primordial notion of nationalism, which
indeed contradicts today’s predominant vision of cultural globalization: science
fiction belongs most of all to the American cultural landscape, that is to a
hegemonic culture par excellence, and is therefore perceived as a direct threat to
Spanish national identity. Cultivating a genre which was originated and mostly
developed in another country is naturally bound to provoke cultural tensions;
however, in the case of Spanish science fiction, said tensions have been
magnified to the point of creating an identity crisis, due to the fundamental
differences between both cultures, which do not seem to allow for a harmonious
adaptation of the genre of science fiction within today’s Spanish cultural
landscape.1
To understand the phenomenon of Spanish science fiction as both an
imitation and a response to its American counterpart, we must first address the
specificities of its historical context, which has severely influenced its evolution:
if science fiction remains to this day a problematic genre in terms of
composition as well as of reception in Spain, it is most of all because it has been
subjected, as most Spanish cultural endeavors after the third decade of the
twentieth century, to the harsh repression of Franco’s dictatorship. In
relationship with this contextual approach, we will be then able to point out
some of the structural characteristics of Spanish science fiction, which
distinguishes it from its American model, as the entire genre struggles between
originality and imitation; ultimately, Spanish science fiction can be seen as a
constant negotiation between an inspiration coming from the other side of the
Atlantic, and the expression of a very defined nationalistic perception of reality,
a direct heritage from a conflictive political past that still informs today’s
collective consciousness.
Surprisingly enough, as documented by Santianez-Tio, the genre of
science fiction actually flourished in Spain during the first three decades of the
twentieth century (Martin Rodriguez); from the 1900s to 1936, Spain generated
and consumed a great amount of narrations that could be classified as science
fiction, in a variety of modes that included space adventures and alien invasions,
as well as the representation of alternate and dystopian universes, which is
considered by some critics as the only real type of science fiction by opposition
to the mere escapism offered by space opera.2 Several classic Spanish authors